Ants, flowers and a rising star – new award for excellent research
“We link hopes, beliefs and courses of action for the future to this new research award,” says Katharina Holzinger, Rector of the University of Konstanz.
Yuko Ulrich from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena is the first recipient of the new Zukunftskolleg Research Award of the University of Konstanz. The prize recognizes the scientific achievements of young researchers and helps them to further develop their personal profile. Yuko Ulrich also represents these hopes and beliefs that young researchers who are given encouragement and support can start a great career.
With the new award, the University of Konstanz is building on sound traditions: “The University of Konstanz has always pursued unconventional paths. Very early on, we made it our mission to support young scientists and offer them the best educational opportunities. The Zukunftskolleg was born out of this endeavour,” says Katharina Holzinger, opening the award ceremony. It took place on Friday, 15 July 2022, in the Chestnut Garden on Mainau Island, which was decorated with beautiful and colourful ants made by children from the university’s Kinderhaus especially for this event.
Yuko Ulrich loved these ants and also the ant noises that musician Johannes Jäck had set to music for her. “I’ve never heard ants before, although I’ve studied them for years. They sound really good that way,” she said, and laughed.
The 2022 award winner
“The most promising rising star”
Yuko Ulrich, biologist, studies the spread of diseases and disease resistance in social insects. She earned her doctoral degree at ETH Zurich, where she studied the evolutionary ecology of bumblebees under the supervision of Professor Paul Schmid-Hempel. As a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Daniel Kronauer’s group at Rockefeller University, New York, she helped to establish the raider ant as a model for studying social behaviour. She founded an independent research group at the University of Lausanne, which moved to ETH Zurich and finally to the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena.
In her research group, Yuko Ulrich addresses questions such as:
1. How does the composition of a social group affect its structure and the rates and pathways of disease transmission within that group?
2. How does infection or immune status affect individual and collective behaviour within and across generations?
3. How do larvae control adult behaviour and reproduction? And how does this affect their own development and the survival of the adult insects?
“Yuko Ulrich is a pioneer in using social insects to study basic concepts in evolution and in epidemiology,” said Giovanni Galizia, who gave the laudatory speech. “As one of the nominators expressed it: “Dr Ulrich is poised to do extremely exciting work over the next years, and her presence at the University of Konstanz, and particularly within the Zukunftskolleg and the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, would massively benefit our intellectual community, bringing energy and new ideas. In particular, her focus on the role of disease in shaping the evolution of animal behaviour is a critically important topic and one of particular interest and importance in the middle of a global pandemic, but it is not currently addressed by existing research programmes at the university.”
The award:
“We move forward”
The Zukunftskolleg Research Award honours young researchers who have accomplished outstanding scientific achievements in their field. This includes networked thinking and research, convincing, solution-oriented methods, and approaches to how we will master the challenges of tomorrow.
The prize encourages the award winners to further develop their individual research profile and supports them in pursuing their academic careers by establishing a research collaboration within the University of Konstanz. “As part of the Excellence Initiative, we have repeatedly broken new ground with the Zukunftskolleg and are doing so again with the award,” says Katharina Holzinger. “We don’t stand still, we move forward. We’re trying out new things and one of them is the new award.”
Yuko Ulrich was the first to receive the unique trophy, which was handcrafted in the university’s scientific workshops by master glassblower Christian Müller. “It is a three-dimensional rendering of the Zukunftskolleg’s logo,” said Giovanni Galizia. “You have five people, each one in a different colour, representing the 5i’s that we embody: independence, interdisciplinarity, internationality, intergenerational and intra-university. This is the diversity of the Zukunftskolleg, and I must admit: It’s the first time that I’m seeing it in real life – so far it was always a printed logo, and now it’s coming to life.”
The Zukunftskolleg Research Award comprises a three-month research stay in Konstanz, in the framework of which the prize winner receives research funding of €3,000, reimbursement of travel costs as well as an accommodation allowance. The award enables its recipients to augment existing research projects, pursue novel experimental approaches, explore new questions and/or forge further links in their academic networks. Over the years, the Zukunftskolleg Research Award will invite nominations from all subject areas at the University of Konstanz.
“We are convinced that academic networks, collaborations and inspiration from colleagues is the most important driving force for good research. This is the spirit of the Zukunftskolleg, of this Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Konstanz,” said Giovanni Galizia.
Topic for 2022
“The Evolution of Behaviour”
For the inaugural award in 2022, nominations for scientific work on “The Evolution of Behaviour” had been invited.
Since its foundation in 1966, the University of Konstanz has had a strong tradition of pioneering research in evolutionary biology, and the first professor here in this field, Professor Hubert Markl, already took the approach that evolution and behaviour must be considered in parallel. Behaviour is not a solely individual characteristic, it is also moulded by group dynamics. In collaboration with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, the University of Konstanz hosts the Cluster of Excellence “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour”, which attracts the best minds in (neuro)biology, psychology, computer science, economics, mathematics and physics, among others. “So, it was natural for us to link the two, and say: Who, among the young researchers in the world, is the most promising rising star who could cover evolution and animal behaviour? We called on our colleagues across the world and received a large number of outstanding nominations. And from these nominations we selected the most exciting one: Yuko Ulrich,” said Giovanni Galizia in his laudatory speech.
